Riding a Bike
by MizukiYukiko
Summary: Since they have known each other for so long, being best friends is like riding a bike for Sakura and Itachi. Sometimes to be more, though, you need a little push. SakuraXItachi, one-shot. Modern AU. 50 shinobi theme #13. Tricycle.


Story: Riding a Bike

Author: MizukiYukiko

Rated: T

Pairing: ItachiXSakura

Disclaimer: Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own Naruto.

Summary: Being best friends is like riding a bike for Sakura and Itachi, since they have been friends for so long. Sometimes to be more, though, you need a little push. Modern AU. 50 shinobi theme #13. Tricycle.

Notes: 50_shinobi themed challenge #13. Tricycle. In honor of Itachi X Sakura week, I tried my hand at a modern alternate universe. I was reading through The First Time, and I started thinking of what it would be like if they grew up in modern day Japan. So I wrote this one shot. It's in a different format, obviously, but it was a lot of fun and I hope you enjoy!

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**Riding a Bike**

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She moved into the house next door when she was four. Sasuke, along with his blonde friend that seemed to be a permanent fixture around their house, took an instant liking to the little pixie that waddled up to their front yard the day the movers arrived. Mikoto went out to greet the new neighbors while Haruno Sakura arrived at the front gate.

Itachi had been sitting at the outside table doing his homework while Naruto and Sasuke tried a hand at riding their tricycles. They were still struggling to gain enough power in their chubby little legs to power their bikes, but they quickly stopped their attempts when a pink-haired little girl ran up to them and away from her mother.

"I'm Sakura," she announced confidently, her bright little smile lighting up her cherubic face while jade eyes twinkled in the late summer sunlight. Sasuke looked at her oddly, as if he distrusted the little sprite in his driveway, while Naruto, always one to welcome new friends, grinned at her in his usual boisterous manner.

"Uzumaki Naruto," he called happily, bounding over to the small girl and grasping her hand in his, shaking it fervently. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Sakura-chan."

Sakura grinned back at him happily, excited to be making new friends already. Her jade eyes sparkled as they shifted from Naruto to the small boy standing behind him, hands shoved into the pockets of his white shorts as he diverted his eyes to the ground. Itachi decided it was his time to interject.

"Sasuke, don't be rude," he chastised lightly, poking his little brother in the forehead roughly. His gaze then shifted to the small girl in front of him, and he quirked his lips in her direction. "My name is Uchiha Itachi and this is Uchiha Sasuke. It is a pleasure to meet you Sakura-chan. You will be living next door?"

Sakura nodded her head vigorously, smiling up at the older boy happily. He was very cute. Even a girl as small as her could see that. Long, wavy hair fell down just past his shoulders, but he kept it tied in a ponytail at the base of his neck. Although he was pretty pale for a boy in the summer, he was tall and healthy looking, exuding an air of confidence and superiority that wasn't quite rude or arrogant, but seemed to fit him just fine. Dark eyes were penetrating, but in looking at the small girl, they lightened with an emotion she didn't know quite yet, but it made her little heart flutter as she smiled at the group of boys in front of her.

"Saki-chan!" the woman who Itachi assumed was Sakura's mother called from where she was speaking with Mikoto. The petite blonde waved her daughter over to her. "Come help me unpack the boxes that will go into your room!"

Sakura grinned back at the three boys.

"It was nice to meet you all," she said genuinely. Turning on her heel, she ran to her mother cutely while Itachi watched her waddle down the sidewalk and into her mother's arms.

Sakura was a constant after that. She became a fast friend to Naruto and Sasuke, and since Sakura's mother was a single mom and worked two jobs, Sakura spent most of her time at the Uchiha house playing with her new friends. All the while, Itachi was there to watch her grow.

The girl had a tricycle of her own, and she and the boys would race it down the street. When it came time to take the training wheels off, Itachi was there to hold the back of the bike while she tried to gain balance. Sasuke had learned how to ride two wheels three whole weeks ago, and Naruto wasn't far behind him. Itachi surmised that was the reasoning behind her determination to learn how to peddle without the training wheels even though she wasn't quite ready yet. But he stayed quiet and helped her the best he could.

After she got the hang of it, he gave her a little push on her back and watched her take off down the sidewalk. Tinkling, exuberant laughter filled the air, and Itachi couldn't help but smile a bit before slipping the impassive mask back over his face.

When she fell for the first time, he was the one who wiped the skinned knee and hands with soap and water, placing pink bandages over the worst of the injuries and imploring her to be more careful. She just smiled up at him and promised she would.

It was his fault that she lost her first tooth before it was even wiggling. They were in the first grade at that point, and Itachi's best friend and cousin were at the house playing catch with each other. Shisui had just said something crude to Itachi that was much too inappropriate for the youngsters to hear. So in an effort to silence his older cousin, he whipped his hand back so forcefully to lob the ball right into Shisui's groin that he smacked Sakura right in the side of the mouth, sending the little girl reeling back. She had been moving across the front yard to go home for dinner, and Itachi had never seen her coming.

Instantly, all hell broke loose.

Sakura instantly fell to the ground, clutching her bruised jaw in her tiny hands and began to whimper in pain, clearly trying to hold back her tears. Blood seeped from her mouth as Itachi crouched down to help her, but he couldn't concentrate with Naruto and Sasuke screeching at him and calling him a murderer in the background and Sakura clenching her jaw tightly shut.

"She's not dead," Shisui snapped at the younger boys instantly, falling into place as the oldest and most responsible of the group. The thirteen-year-old pointed to Sasuke, "Go get Mikoto," he ordered. Then he turned to Naruto, "Go get Sakura-chan's mother."

Both boys went into action immediately, running off in the directions of the respective homes. Itachi grabbed the Kleenex he had in his pocket and began wiping the blood off of Sakura's round face. Her eyes were filled with so much pain that his insides immediately clenched in fear and despair.

"You can cry," he finally whispered to her. "I know it hurt."

His permission was all he needed for the girl's mouth to open and small sobs to break out and large, spherical drops of saline to fall down her chubby cheeks. After the first sob, a small white tooth popped out of her mouth and into Itachi's hand. The duo just looked at each other for a moment before the mother's arrived to help the little girl. No words were exchanged after that, but she did share some of the candy bar with him the next day – the candy bar she had bought with the dollar that the tooth fairy had left for her.

When he found out she was being bullied because of the size of her forehead and the color of her eyes and hair, he was the one who found the horrible little girls responsible. She was only nine at the time, and her fragile self-esteem was quickly dwindling. Itachi could see it in the way that her head hung lower each day when she returned from school. The fear and shame that was deep in her verdant depths killed him.

Instead of staying outside and playing with her friends, she would just drudge into her house and lock the door, not even greeting the fourteen-year-old Itachi when he waved to her. Naruto and Sasuke were powerless to do anything as they watched their little pixie fall prey to the girls of their class. Standing up to them could mean big trouble for the young boys. They didn't want to be seen as bullies themselves.

So Itachi found them one day, Shisui in tow, as they called Sakura some horrible names and kicked dirt at her. Itachi grabbed the two girls by the collars of their school uniforms and hauled them off of his precious ward. Shisui dropped down by Sakura, dabbing her tears away with a handkerchief and patting away the dirt and dust on their clothes. After a long and stern talking to from a very handsome middle school boy and his older cousin, the girls never dared go by Sakura again.

Sakura thanked them profusely, but Shisui just patted the little girl's head and assured her, "You do whatever you can to help family, Sakura-chan."

Sasuke came home one day after school with a disgruntled look on his face. When Itachi asked him what was wrong, Sasuke just looked at his brother strangely before shrugging his shoulders and going into his room. Later, after dinner, the twelve-year-old confided that Sakura had confessed that she loved him. There was a strange twisting in Itachi's gut that was so profound that he could barely muster a fake chuckle and pat Sasuke on the head. The thought that he could be jealous of his little brother was so absurd, that he began to feel ashamed of himself for even thinking of it in the first place.

He walked out into the backyard and lit a cigarette, contemplating the meaning of the sinking feeling in his stomach. After one drag of the cigarette, he put it out. He never really liked smoking, but it had become habit after Shisui had given him his first light two years back.

Two weeks later, Sakura found him smoking in his car. The barely-thirteen-year-old threw a hissy fit and demanded that he stopped. He promised he would never smoke again, and he never did.

Later that year when he graduated high school, she was in the crowd with a large bouquet of assorted flowers that he wasn't quite sure what to do with. However, the package of dango that she gave him was quickly eaten. Even at thirteen, she was a very good cook.

He first saw her kiss a boy when she was fifteen. He was sitting in his car in the driveway, waiting for Sasuke to get home so that they could go pick up dinner together. In the second year of college, he hardly had time to stop at home anymore, but it was one of the few weekends that he had ended up back in the city where they grew up from Tokyo University.

She was walking home from school when he first saw her. Right behind her, though, was a pale boy who had darker hair and even darker eyes. When they reached her house, he gave her the bag that he had been carrying, which was quite obviously hers, before leaning in and kissing her chastely on the mouth.

Once again, he felt his gut twist in an unfamiliar way which he had to ignore. His black car hid his face as Sakura practically pranced back into the house.

A few hours later, she knocked on the front door. When he swung it open, her fact was red with anger.

"You come home for a weekend and you don't even visit?" she hissed. Wrapping her thin, yet deceptively strong, fingers around his wrist, she pulled him out of the house and threw him into the driver's seat of his car.

"What are you doing?" he deadpanned. Sakura slid into the passenger's seat and folded her arms over her chest after buckling herself in.

"Taking you out to dinner, but I don't have a car and can't drive yet" she responded. Tapping her food impatiently, she gave him a pointed look before shifting her attention to the keys in his pocket. "Well, are you going to start the car?"

He rolled his eyes, but the soft purr of the engine came to life. They ended up at a western styled burger restaurant, her favorite, a few minutes later. As they sat together in a comfortable silence, him watching her double dip her fries in ketchup like she always did, he mused that their friendship was similar to riding a bike. No matter how long he was gone from school, or she was gone at summer camps for the future doctors of the world, they were still friends the moment that they were together.

Most of the time, she spent talking about Sai, her new boyfriend. He did his best not to roll his eyes every time she gushed about something else her new beau was good at.

When the boy broke her heart, he wasn't the one to go and find him to properly punish him; he wanted to though. However, he did hear from his mother that Sasuke and Naruto had been suspended from school for two days from jumping the boy after gym class. Itachi acted appalled by his younger brother's actions for the remainder of the phone call, but the moment he clicked the end button, he texted Sasuke, '_Good job. I hope you got in a hit or two for me and Shisui._'

He caught her smoking on the night of his college graduation. The large flowers that she had given him along with the dango fell to the ground with a soft thud when he stepped behind the ceremonial hall to find her lighting a cigarette and taking two long drags out of it. Marching up to her, he plucked the cigarette right out of her mouth and chastised her the same way she had done to him. Eventually, she promised she would never smoke again.

Long, pink tresses fell into loose curls the day of her high school graduation. He was waiting in the crowd with a bouquet of lilies and a box of dove chocolate – her favorite. Jade eyes sparkled with wonder and mischief as she took pictures with their large group of friends. Most of them, though, were of her, Naruto, and Sasuke – the three musketeers, their classmates had named them. However, she sought him out after a few minutes and demanded a round of photos which he granted, of course.

By that time, he was finished with school and already working on the police force in Tokyo, so he was unable to come home. Luckily, though, she moved to Tokyo along with Naruto, Sasuke, and her other best friends Ino and Hinata. The three girls shared a dorm room together while she studied to become a doctor.

Slowly, he watched as she put on some weight from the alcohol and shit food that she ate. Quickly, she became mortified when Shisui pointed it out one day. Sakura promptly slapped the older man across the face and stomped off. However, she did join a gym and insist in joining Naruto and Sasuke on their morning runs and swiftly slimmed down to her previous physique.

One morning she came over to surprise him with breakfast. He had worked the swing shift the night before and it was unlikely that he was going to sleep very well. But when she approached his door, it swung open. A tall, leggy blonde stumbled out in her high heels. It wasn't Shisui that was seeing her out as Sakura had expected, though; it was Itachi.

As the girl turned down the hallway, Itachi's languid smirk and gaze followed her – until his obsidian orbs locked onto Sakura. Verdant eyes were filled with confusion and pain as she muttered, "Oh, sorry" and turned and walked away. Itachi sighed and rubbed a hand down his face in exasperation. There were a million reasons why he didn't want Sakura to see the woman leaving his apartment, but the look in her eyes was definitely at the top of the list.

She got him back a few weeks later. Club Blue was the hottest club in the area, and in celebration of her twenty-first birthday, Sakura and her friends all decided to go out. Itachi was invited, of course, but he mostly went to keep an eye on the young sprite that he had watched for eighteen years now.

It wasn't long before he wished he hadn't. Only an hour or two after arriving, a young man attached himself to Sakura and she reveled in his attention. When they began a very intimate make-out session, Sakura straddling the young man's waist, Itachi left in a fury.

He didn't respond to her texts or phone calls, and he wouldn't discuss her with Sasuke, Naruto, or Shisui. He avoided her on the train and around town. It was a big city and he was working more now, so avoiding her wasn't very hard.

Of course, he had no right to be jealous. They weren't committed to each other in any way, and unless they did commit, he wouldn't be stopping his rendezvous with the rotation of young women he kept on his list of short flings. However, that didn't stop the red rage that had swept over him the moment that he saw her flirting with other men, and worse yet, kissing them.

Six whole months passed before he talked to her again, and it happened completely by accident. How was he supposed to know she had gotten a job at the diner he liked to stop at for coffee during his shifts with Shisui? When he walked in and saw the glow of pink hair, he would have turned around and headed back right then if Shisui hadn't turned him back around and shoved him towards the counter. If his cousin hadn't still had his gun on him from their shift on patrol, he would have just forced his way out.

Sitting down at the counter, Sakura greeted them before she even turned around. The words cut off abruptly when she saw who was sitting at her bar. Her lips automatically thinned out into a pursed line before she marched over to Itachi and slapped him dead across the face. Before anybody could say anything, she turned back and marched with equal determination into the kitchen. Itachi didn't miss her wiping the tears out of her eyes before she left.

It was late at night, so there weren't any other patrons in the diner, but it still stung his ego and pride far more than it stung his cheek. Another waiter walked over to them quietly and took their orders, filling their coffee before they left for the night.

He woke the next morning to a familiar and persistent knock on his front door. Pulling himself out of bed, he couldn't decide if he wanted to grin or be afraid of the pink-haired pixie that was behind his apartment door. When he finally opened it, he found the expected person standing at his front of him. The plate of his favorite flavored dango was unexpected.

"I'm sorry for slapping you," she stated easily, but her eyes betrayed her discomfort. "Even if you deserved it."

Itachi allowed the ends of his lips to tug up. Just like that, they were back to normal – just like riding a bike.

"I apologize for my absence over the past six months," he returned, allowing her to walk into his apartment.

"You ignored me for six months," Sakura corrected. Looking around carefully, she turned back to Itachi after scrutinizing his apartment. "I'm not going to find any of yours or Shisui's female companions here, am I?"

Setting the dango down on the counter and pulling out the milk, he handed her a cup. It was an unconventional breakfast, but it was their secret ritual. He shook his head in response to her question, and she smiled.

"Good," she said.

Later that year, she graduated from college. This time, Itachi wasn't there to give her flowers and chocolate. Shisui wasn't there either. After sending him several angry, hurt text messages, she went home and cried herself to sleep. Her mother had been there, along with Uchiha Mikoto and Fugaku, and Sasuke and Naruto had graduated right along with her again.

The most important person wasn't there, though. This was important; he had _promised_.

The next morning, there was a loud, persistent knocking on her door. Dragging herself out of bed, she yanked it open to find a panicked Naruto.

"Itachi was shot last night."

He was paler than the first day that she met him and thought he was much too pale for the summer. The blood was drained from his body completely. The even, distinct ping of his heart monitor was oddly reassuring, but she ran her hand through his hair and wedged her fingers to his neck to make sure that his heart was actually beating. Sakura sat as his bedside from the moment she arrived, still in her pajamas, and clutched his hand that was hooked up to dozens of tiny tubes. Large tears streamed down her face as she cursed every hurtful text she had sent last night.

When his doctor, the legendary Tsunade, greeted her, Sakura was in awe. Her entire life she had been looking up to the woman who was standing in the same room as her. However, she wasn't able to ask questions or grovel at the woman's feet. Instead, her hand was much too preoccupied holding Itachi's. The rest of his family was eating lunch, but Sakura refused to leave his side.

"Are you Sakura?" Tsunade asked suddenly. "And your favorite flowers are lilies and you love dove chocolate?"

Emerald eyes widened in confusion, and Sakura could only nod her head dumbly at the woman standing in front of her. Tsunade smiled at the young woman clutching onto her patient desperately. "When they brought him in last night, he was still conscious. Delirious, yes, but still conscious. He told me to hurry up because you were graduating today and he had to be there. His cousin, the one who found him shot, said that there were lilies and chocolate in his front seat that were for you."

Sakura took in all the information, and then promptly burst into tears. Burying her face into Itachi's bed, she sobbed while the woman rubbed her back soothingly. This was just great. She finally gets to meet her hero, and instead of being professional and intelligent, she is sobbing dumbly into her best friend's comatose body.

There was a rumble from the man underneath her, and when she looked up, deep onyx eyes were staring down at her intently. Biting her lip, she wiped the sweat off of his forehead and clutched him tightly by the hand. He coughed a few times, and Sakura brought him water which he sipped from greedily through a straw. Tsunade checked on his vitals and gave him some more morphine before slipping out of the room to give the couple a little bit of privacy.

"You can cry," Sakura whimpered as tears flowed down her own cheeks. She was still stroking his cheeks and face. They were cold from the lack of blood, and he instinctively leaned into her tender caresses. "I know it hurt."

Itachi coughed again, and in a raspy voice, he began, "I'm sorry—"

"Don't you dare apologize," Sakura cut him off. Guiltily, she continued, "Ignore the texts I sent you last night. They were horrible, but I was so mad. But I'm so sorry now. I'm sorry that this happened."

Just before Itachi slipped back into unconsciousness, he was able to lift his own hand and caress her cheek tenderly.

"It's alright," he assured. "It's all going to be okay."

Everything came to a head during the trial of the man who shot him two whole years later. It took the police department almost an entire year to track down the yakuza wannabe who had shot the police officer as a gang initiation.

During that time, Itachi had been promoted to detective. Sakura had gotten an internship underneath Tsunade, who understood her deep bond with the Uchiha, and she also began medical school. But her busy schedule didn't mean that she wouldn't show up for the trial.

No, Sakura was there the entire time, listening in detail to what happened to Itachi that night. During the two days that Itachi was on the stand, she would bring him dango and rub the tension out of his shoulders, listening to his tired sighs and complaints. The entire thing was clearly taking a toll on Sakura as well. The bags under her eyes became deeper, and she was struggling to emotionally cope with everything that was happening.

Finally, when all was said and done, the yakuza was sentenced to a very long stint in jail, and the media glorified Itachi as a hero. His good looks a tall, dark, and handsome persona didn't help him at all. Shisui reveled in the attention, telling the tale to the media, after the trial was over, of how he had come out of the gas station to find his little cousin shot three times in the chest. Itachi, however, wanted to remain as ambiguous as possible.

The constant media attention, especially from the female reporters, was grating on Sakura's nerves by the end of the long trial. So when the verdict and punishment was announced, and the group walked out of the courthouse to find a horde of reporters, Sakura was clearly miffed by the entire thing. The high heels she wore were giving her blisters, and the blue sundress she was wearing was a size too small and riding up her back. A whole slew of female admirers of her handsome friends were the last thing that Sakura had the time or patience to deal with.

So when, after a ten minute interview with Itachi, one especially _loose_ looking reporter asked, "So, Uchiha-san, are you single? The women in Tokyo must know!"

It was the straw the broke the camel's back. It was the last push Sakura needed to step forward, grab Itachi by the neck, and force his head down so that their lips met. His entire body went rigid for a moment, but he quickly rebounded and kissed her back tentatively. Sakura ripped her head away after a moment before glowering at the woman.

"No, he's not single," she bit back and pulled Itachi away by his wrist. Forcing him into the back seat of the car that the precinct had gotten for them, she slid in after him in a huff. Shisui and Sasuke, along with the rest of the Uchihas present, wisely took another car. "I can't believe them! They were so rude and falling all over you like that! Trashy!"

Itachi could only smirk smugly at her. It was the smirk that she hated the most, but he couldn't keep it down. Finally, he asked, "Did you mean what you said?"

Sakura's face suddenly turned bright red as she wrung her fingers through the skirt of her dress. When she wouldn't meet his eye, he slid over to her just as the car began to move. Large hands cupped her rounded chin and brought her eyes up to meet his tenderly.

"Sakura."

"I guess," she huffed. "I mean, if you want."

Itachi chuckled as he leaned over and kissed her chastely on the lips before kissing her a little harder. Being together, he mused, would just be like riding a bike without the training wheels. Because this entire time, they had been practicing being a couple with the training wheels still on, and now it was time to take them off.

"Yes," he responded easily. "I want."

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AN: Well that's it for this little one-shot that I couldn't quite get out of my head. Happy Itachi X Sakura week! And please review!


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